This is a zine dedicated to black metal written by a follower of the left hand path, This zine has been around in a different format for a while and I have decided to make an edition for www.blogger.com, for more information email occultblackmetalzine@yahoo.com, new albums as well as classic albums will be reviewed on here as long as their good quality black metal,

Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Arathgoth/Brutal Winter/Katabaz Records/2013 Full Length Review

Arathgoth are a 1 man band from the Forgotten lands that started out as a dungeon synth project but started utilizing elements of depressive and atmospheric black metal with this recording and this is a review of his 2013 album "Brutal Winter" which was released by Katabaz Records.

The album starts out with some heavy and dark sounding guitar riffs along with some synths and then going into a fast black metal direction along with some programmed beats and grim screams and you can also hear melodies being added into the music along with a mixture of slow and fast parts.

As the album progresses you can hear dungeon synth being mixed with black metal while the heavy parts dominate over the synths and the screams also start utilizing more depressive elements and when the album goes into the third song it shows a return back to the dungeon synth style of earlier albums and the black metal makes a return halfway through the album and takes over again.

The music on the album starts to change it starts out being black metal and then goes to dungeon synth and after awhile it will alternate between both styles while also being mixed together and you can hear Arathgoth has progressed a lot with this recording and he never repeats himself and so far all 4 of his albums have sounded different for each other.

Song lyrics cover dark, cold and pagan themes, while the production has a very dark, raw and heavy sound to it which is perfect for the mixture of black metal and dungeon synth and the music is not too overproduced.

In my opinion this is another great sounding recording from Arathgoth and if you are a fan of black metal and dungeon synth, you should check out this album. RECOMMENDED TRACKS INCLUDE "Brutal Winter" "Lost In The Blizzard" "Pale Moon" and "Thin ice". 9 out of 10.